(Editor’s note: These are the opening remarks Rabbi Neal Schuster presented at the Yom HaShoah Community Holocaust Commemoration Sunday, May 1, at the White Theatre.)
What does the Passover seder have to do with this year’s theme of Survivors’ Journeys and their arrival in Kansas City?
Thanks for the support
The Jewish Community Foundation-Friends of Sheffield are most appreciative of the article in the April 21st edition of the Chronicle on the completion of our “Restoring Honor Campaign” for Sheffield Cemetery.
For 13 years I have been taught many aspects of Jewish life and Jewish history. Living a Jewish life and learning from Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, I became confident in my Jewish education. As I got older, Holocaust studies was integrated into our education. We read testimonials, the facts, the numbers. We even meet with survivors and heard their stories of triumph.
When I arrived in Israel for the first time this past March, I expected to be overcome with a rush of emotion. What kind, I was never entirely sure, but something inside me — most likely due to experiences of my peers — strongly believed that Israel would overwhelm me.
President’s Saudi trip confusing
No one can deny that President Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia was a part of his last-minute bid to ensure his legacy.
Last month we celebrated the completion of the “Restoring Honor Campaign,” which brought beauty and serenity back to the sacred grounds of Sheffield Cemetery.
I remember my first AIPAC national Policy Conference my freshman year at University of Michigan in 1992. We rode all night in a bus from Ann Arbor to Washington, D.C., to join the hundreds of other student delegates and thousands of adult delegates to lobby our members of Congress on the importance of the United States–Israel relationship.
Evoking Holocaust to promote political agenda unacceptable
I have never written a letter to The Chronicle or any other paper in my entire life. However, after reading the article in the March 10 issue of the Chronicle entitled, “Foxman: Trump knew his Hitler-like salute was evoking fascist symbolism,” I felt that I had to respond.
Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy (HBHA), a Jewish day school in Overland Park, Kansas, and my home since kindergarten, has always emphasized the pursuit of justice. In the past few years, the effort to more closely connect HBHA high schoolers to the local and global community through social justice work enabled my classmates and me to partner with Kansas City, Missouri-based University Academy (UA) students.
